Coaxing the Cherokees

That commission expected to start some time this month.

Washington April 8.,- The commission recently appointed by the president to negotiate purchase of 6,000,000 acres of land in Indian territory, have been notified by telegraph to assemble in Washington not later than the 15th inst. As soon thereafter as their instructions can be given them, probably within four or five days, they will leave for Muscogee, the capital of the Cherokee nation. The expectation is that the commission will finish its work within sixty or ninety days, at the farthest. It is empowered to offer the Cherokees $1.25 an acre for land.

The only opposition to the purchase will come, it is believed, from the cattle syndicates which are grazing their herds on the land which it is proposed to buy. Their opposition, however, will be largely centralized by the fact that the purchase money will be placed at interest, which will pay the Indians $350,000 a year instead of $250,000 a year, which is the entire amount received by them from the cattle men. Should the Indians refuse to sell an effort will be made in the next congress to take the land without paying them a cent.

It is believed however that the commission will reach a satisfactory conclusion with the Indians and that the 6,000,000 acres thus acquired will be thrown open to settlement during the coming summer. These together with the 2,000,000 recently purchased, constitute the principal portion of what will be in the future known as Oklahoma territory. Before the close of the present month it is estimated that 50,000 persons will have sought homes in Oklahoma, which is now a howling wilderness. With the 6,000,000 acres added it is believed that the population will be tripled before the end of the present year.